> Whether you love him or hate him...read this "letter"....it's too good > to pass by. Hate it as you may, you can't argue with it. > > > Letter to the President > > It needed to be said

This letter was written by Eric Jowers, a retired Army Officer, who served as public affairs officer at Fort Rucker from 1989 to 1991. He now lives in Ozark, Alabama. ---------------------------------------------------------

Dear Mr. President:

It's not about sex. If it were about sex, you would be long gone. Just like a doctor, attorney or teacher who had sex with a patient, client or student half his age, you would have violated the ethics of your office and would be long gone. Just like a Sergeant Major of the Army, Gene McKinney, who though found not guilty, was forced to resign amid accusations of sexual abuse.

Remember the Air Force General you wouldn't nominate to be Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff because he freely admitted to an affair almost 15 years before, while he and his wife were separated? Unlike you, he was never accused of having a starry-eyed office assistant my daughter's age perform oral sex on him while he was on the phone and his wife and daughter were upstairs.

If it were about sex, you should be subjected to the same horrible hearings that Clarence Thomas was subjected to because of the accusations of Anita Hill. The only accusation then was that he talked dirty to her; he didn't even leave semen stains on her dress. No, it's not about sex.

It's about character. It's about lying. It's about arrogance. It's about abuse of power. It's about dodging the draft and lying about it. When caught in a lie by letters you wrote, you concocted a story that nobody believed. But we excused it and looked away.

It's about smoking dope, and lying about it. "I didn't inhale, "you said. Sure, and when I was 15 and my buddies and I swiped a beer from an unwatched refrigerator, we drank from it, but we didn't swallow.

"I broke no laws of the United States," you said. That's right, you smoked dope in England or Norway or Moscow; where you were demonstrating against the U.S.A. You lied, but we excused it and looked away.

It's about you selling overnight stays in the White House to any foreigner or other contributor with untraceable cash. It's about Whitewater and Jim and Susan McDougal and Arkansas, Gov. Jim Guy Tucker and Vincent Foster and Jennifer Flowers and Paula Jones and Karen Willey and nearly countless others.

It's about stealing the records from Foster's office while his body was still warm and putting them in your bedroom and "not noticing them" for two years.

It's about illegal political contributions. It's about you and Al Gore soliciting contributions and selling influence at Buddhist temples and in the same Oval Office where Abraham Lincoln and Franklin Roosevelt led their countries through the dark days of wars that threatened the very existence of our nation. But we excused you and looked away.

It's about hiding evidence from Ken Starr, refusing to testify, filing legal motions, coaching witnesses, obstructing justice and delaying Judge Starr's inquiry for months and years, and then complaining that it has gone on too long. The polls agreed. Thank goodness that Judge Starr didn't read the polls, play politics or excuse you and look away.

He held on to the evidence like a tenacious bulldog.

Your supporters say that you've confessed your wrong doings and asked for our forgiveness. Listen, what you said on TV the night you testified to the grand jury was not a confession; overwhelming evidence is not a confession at all. Not that it would make a lot of difference .

A murderer who contritely confesses his crime is still a murderer. When your "confession" didn't sell, even to your friends, you became more forthcoming.

Maybe someday you'll confess more, but probably not. You've established such a pattern of lying that we can't believe you anymore. Neither can your cabinet, the Congress or any of the leaders of the nations of the world.

When a leader's actions defame and emasculate our country as profoundly as yours have, it's no longer a personal matter, as you claim. It's no longer a matter among you, your family and your God.

By the way, I don't believe for a minute that Hillary was unaware of your sexual misadventures, abuses of power and pattern of lying. She has been a party to your wrong doings since Whitewater and Jennifer Flowers just as surely as she lied about the Rose law firm's billings and hid the Vincent Foster evidence in your bedroom for two years.

Why? So she could share in the raw power that your office carries.

The two of you probably lied to Chelsea, but that is a matter among you, your family and your God.

Remember the sign over James Carvill's desk during the l992 campaign?

It said, "It's the economy, stupid! Place this sign over your desk: "It's about character, stupid!" No, it's not about sex, Mr. President. If it were, you would be long gone. It's about character; but we have to live with your filth, lies and arrogance for a while longer. Your lies, amorality and lack of character have been as pervasive as they have been despicable, so we have no reason to believe that you will quietly resign and go away. You'll count on half truths and spin doctors to see you through, the country be damned. It has always worked before. We excused you and looked the other way.

No more, we've had enough. You betrayed us enough. You have made every elected official, minister, teacher, diplomat, parent and grandparent in the country apologize for you and explain away your actions. Now go away, and let us show them that our country was not without morals.

It was just that you were. Let us show them that America was not the problem. William Jefferson Clinton was.

Go away, Mr. President. Leave us alone. And when you leave, know that your legacy to the United States of America will be a stain on the Office of the President that is as filthy as the stain on Monica's dress. It will take a lot of scrubbing to make it clean again.

---------------------------------

If you agree with this letter send it to as many people as possible!!

-- (justme@WhyTwoKay.com), February 19, 1999

Answers

Please. The purpose of this forum is Y2K. There are plenty of other places to discuss political issues.

-- Steve Hartsman (hartsman@ticon.net), February 19, 1999.

Hey Steve, this *is* about Y2K. This clown is going to make decisions that affect us directly next year.

Jolly NOT!

-- Jollyprez (Jolly@prez.com), February 19, 1999.

Saw that letter on a commodity traders forum before the votes,,,true then,,,true now,,,maybe even more so now. This is the "man" that will lead us through Y2k,,,like it or not. Frankly I like it.

Now , before I zip the last flap on my flame proof jammies let me explain.

IMHO the fact that we have a lame duck pres. reduces the chance that we will see the famed "EO's", the black choppers with ninga clad warriors used. I think the Fed. just GI. If you've been watching the news you might have noticed the change in the tone and content.

I think this is telling and important. I think they have gone from " how can I benifit from this " to " how can I survive this " to " can the Gov. survive this " Hopefully they wont do something stupid,,,again.

Fire away,

-- TAZ (taz@no.yr), February 19, 1999.

Given that the above letter is true, appropriate and all too accurate a judge of Mr. Clinton's character, consider the possible options. 1. Al Gore becomes pres. Do you REALLY want Clinton out this bad? 2. Clinton remains in office, becomes a hermit and allows FEMA to control the situation. Better than Gore but not much. 3. Most likely scenario--Things become loose around the edges in November 99, "temporary" restrictions are put in place (with the blessing of the sheeple) controlling actual cash withdrawals, "excessive" food purchases, etc. This would allow the merchants to still have their Christmas season since there would be no restricion of electronic money. Then on Dec 26 or 27, martial law will be instituted with the National Guard on alert but not in the streets. There will be a curfew in most cities of >25,000 with it being enforced by the locals. On Jan 1, there will be "reports" of looting and "problems" which allows the National Guard to be released to assist the local police. The institution of a state of martial law can remain in place for 6 months without the concurrence of Congress. I believe there is a provision for Congress to revoke this situation but I cannot find it in the articles on Executive Orders (if you can find it, please post). Anyway, the next step is for Mr. Clinton to delay the elections "since no one can campaign". How many incumbents are going to argue with him? You may have this man for quite a while yet. He has already proven he has no moral scruples in maintaining his power--and Hillary is no better. Lobo

-- Lobo (hiding@wooods.com), February 19, 1999.

President Clinton has been punished enough for his indiscretion. It was not he who plastered the matter all over the media. It was the "saintly" repubicans. Every time they march in before cameras the tune should be ",,,and when the saints come marching in!...etc." VOX POPULI VOX DEI The voice of the people is the voice of God. We the people in overwhelming majority have forgiven this great president . After all Jefferson, kennedy, BenFranklyn, would have been equelly persecuted by a pseudo independent counces like K.Starr.

Al Gore is a profound man, read his book Earth in the Balance" To accept contributions from buddhists is no sin. What is truly frightening is the ugly head of fascism and of the inquisition raising its fanatical stench in our country.

Y2K could have no better leaders at the helm than Clinton and Gore. Clinton is smarter than all republicans combined and can dance circles around the corrupt fools and Gore has more understanding of the environment, Y2k and the dishonesty of Washington Lizards than any one in government today.

-- David Carrigan (letters@uneco.org), February 19, 1999.

Uhhh,,,When Y2k was explained to Bubba and Algore in 1995,,Clinton understood but Gore couldn't quiet wrap his so called brain around it,,and I don't think he has yet. Read his book a little more,,,he thinks we need to reduce world pop. by 1/3.

Please,,,don't let nothing happen to Bubba,

-- TAZ (taz@no.yr), February 19, 1999.

Many of us are sick to death of hearing about Clinton/Monica. The media has beaten this horse to death. They loved it. It's appeal to the soap opera mentality kept the ratings high for a straight year. It's over. There's a government forum where you can hash and rehash Clinton's sins, omissions, high crimes and misdemeanors this for the rest of your life if you want to. Please can we stick to Y2K.

Kennedy lied about the Bay of Pigs, Eisenhow lied about U-2 spy planes over Russia, Johnson lied about a U.S. ship being attacked by N. Vietanmese, Nixon lied about any involvement about Watergate, Roanlal Reagan lied about almost everything. But Clinton lied about a sex act with a consenting adult. As a fellow from Australia wrote, "Thank God they got the Puritans and we got the convicts." Flame away!

-- gilda jessie (jess@listbot.com), February 19, 1999.

You ARE ALLL JACKAss idiot FOOLS, But not STEVE AND Gilda WHO ARE WISE!!!! WHY DO YOU loser stuPid ClinTON HATESR POST tHAT drivel????? wher is YOU BRaINS//????

-- Dieter (questions@toask.com), February 19, 1999.

I believe that Clinton and his character were selected by the "powers that be" to be the figurehead of this country because of his low morality, as part of an effort to destroy the standing of the presidency so that when the globalists come marching in, "we the people" would be more willing to accept a diminished presidency and a diminished sense of "nationalism." Remember, no president will ever be elected without a nod from the globalists. The Monica mess and Clinton's propensity to lie fit perfectly into this. Now we have an emasculated presidency, an emasculated Congress and an emasculated nation. "Strong leadership? Sure, we'll accept that, IF IT WILL SOLVE OUR PROBLEMS!" Won't matter where it comes from. Clinton and his masters are brilliant. They've kept us fighting over his issues of "character" for so long, that we don't recognize what's really being done. And Y2K, although certainly an unplannned mistake, fits perfectly into it. That's why they've been so quiet about it and spreading so much disinformation.

-- pshannon (pshannon@inch.com), February 19, 1999.

What a great letter...

pshannon - you are absolutely correct in your post above - the following is from today's Wall Street Journal. Read it in the context of pshannons post above.......

February 19, 1999

Commentary

Juanita Broaddrick meets the Press

By Dorothy Rabinowitz, a member of the Journal's editorial board.

VAN BUREN, Ark.--To any reporter, it was the kind of story that doesn't come along often in a career--an alleged 1978 sexual assault involving William Jefferson Clinton, then attorney general of Arkansas. From the viewpoint of Juanita Broaddrick, it has been a trial and concern ever since reports began emerging in the 1992 presidential campaign, through the Paula Jones case and into the impeachment proceedings.

Indeed, her story was crucial to the outcome of those proceedings-- just one among several reasons it is far more than another now-irrelevant Jane Doe account. It was when several wavering House Republicans read the Jane Doe material from the independent counsel's office that they decided they would vote to impeach. As Jane Doe No. 5, Mrs. Broaddrick had filed an affidavit denying that Mr. Clinton had subjected her to--as the delicately phrased document put it--"unwelcome sexual advances." Interviewed by the independent counsel's office, she said that affidavit was false, and that she had been assaulted--an account essential to understanding the second presidential impeachment in U.S. history.

Since the 1992 campaign, journalists had chased after Mrs. Broaddrick, a resistant quarry if ever there was one. With the advent of the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal last year, the chase took on a new level of intensity. A Fox News crew pursued her down the highway, as she tried to outrace them at 90 miles an hour. Time magazine reporters trying to get to her pretended they were covering a local tennis benefit. The Broaddricks' phone rang incessantly with requests for interviews, all of them refused until one weekend last January.

Mrs. Broaddrick finally agreed to see NBC's Lisa Myers, who had already done a brief report on her in March and who had been calling her regularly for nearly a year. Within a day, Ms. Myers and a crew were on their way, even as an ABC producer was on the phone asking if Mrs. Broaddrick would come to New York to meet with Barbara Walters. Too late--nor was she about to vault from home, where she was surrounded by all that gave comfort and warmth, to go rushing to New York to talk about this with a stranger. It was hard enough with a reporter familiar to her.

First she had to break the news to her obdurately protective husband that, after all the years of running from the media, she had consented to go on camera. She is clear enough, in her mind, about how she had come to this decision. On New Year's Eve, as the family sat around a table celebrating with friends, someone passed around a copy of the Star, which had a report about her saying, among other things, that Mr. Clinton had bribed her husband to keep him quiet. The rest of New Year's Eve was a ruin. So was the day that followed, as she contemplated all the layers of tawdry rumor about her that had multiplied in the wake of the other, larger scandal involving the president. Perhaps the time had come, she thought, to get the facts out and put an end to all the stories, as Ms. Myers, a respected veteran reporter, had so long argued.

Still, three hours before the crew started shooting, Mrs. Broaddrick began to shake with fear as she considered the consequences, what she would be telling, and about whom. He was the president. She thought of asking if it was too late to get out of the whole thing. Still, soon enough, the camera crew had set up, the interview begun. The filming went on from midmorning to evening, and then it was over.

The interview took place Jan. 20, just over a month after the president's impeachment on Dec. 19. The Senate trial had been under way for nearly two weeks--focused, at this point, on whether Monica Lewinsky should testify. At NBC, the debate was what to do about the Broaddrick interview--a large question. NBC had scheduled the program for airing on the Jan. 29 episode of "Dateline," Mrs. Broaddrick heard--but it did not air then or later. The network had an explosive story on its hands, to be sure, and also an exhaustively investigated one. NBC's researchers had combed through the Broaddricks' entire lives, through dusty basement files and court records. "They got to read," Mrs. Broaddrick marvels, "old papers about the case we settled with two employees fired for theft 20 years ago."

As the days passed, with no Broaddrick interview--and the Feb. 12 Senate impeachment trial vote imminent--NBC News spokesmen told all callers the "Dateline" report was still a work in progress, requiring more investigation. Other sources at NBC asked--profoundly off the record- -how much more confirmation could the story need? They had four witnesses giving corroborating testimony--citizens with nothing to gain and possibly much to lose by going public and talking, as the husband of one witness kept warning her. Still, they had come forward. NBC had investigated and investigated, and it was not yet enough. Word went out from NBC that the network had to cross-check dates, or lacked enough dates. Meanwhile, for any journalist asking what happened to the interview with Mrs. Broaddrick, the office of NBC News president Andrew Lack had a simple, uplifting message-- namely that NBC wanted to make sure the story was "rock solid" journalism.

Mrs. Broaddrick understood her position. All she had tried to avoid by refusing all these years to talk to the press, all that she had feared--that she would not be believed, that she would be passed off as just another bimbo with a Clinton story--had now come to pass, in her view. As soon as it was evident there was to be trouble about airing the piece, she recalls, Lisa Myers told her: "The good news is you're credible. The bad news is you're very credible." Mrs. Broaddrick repeats this more than once, as though trying to puzzle its meaning--but its meaning of course is entirely clear to her, as to everyone else hearing it. It meant that to encounter this woman, to hear the details of her story and the statements of the corroborating witnesses, was to understand that this was an event that in fact took place. "Too credible" sums the matter up nicely.

It isn't hard to see what had given NBC pause. There was, first of all, the detail. Then the subject herself--a woman of accomplishment, prosperous, successful in her field, serious; a woman seeking no profit, no book, no lawsuit. A woman of a kind people like and warm to. To meet Juanita Broaddrick at her house in Van Buren is to encounter a woman of sunny disposition that the nudgings of anxiety can't quite suppress--a woman entirely aware of life's bounties. She sits talking in the peaceful house on a hilltop overlooking the Broaddricks' 40 acres, where 30 cows, five horses and a mule roam. An effervescent dog called Wally and a three-legged companion, Pearl, rush around in their midst. It is a good life all right.

The story: In 1978, 35-year-old Juanita Broaddrick--a Clinton campaign worker--had already owned a nursing home for five years. Since her graduation from nursing school she had worked for several such facilities and decided she wanted to run one of her own. It was that home that Attorney General Clinton visited one day, on a campaign stop during his run for governor. He invited Juanita, then still married to her first husband, to visit campaign headquarters when she was in Little Rock. As it happened, she told him, she was planning to attend a seminar of the American College of Nursing Home Administrators the very next week and would do just that. On her arrival in Little Rock, she called campaign headquarters. Mrs. Broaddrick was surprised to be greeted by an aide who seemed to expect her call, and who directed her to call the attorney general at his apartment. They arranged to meet at the coffee shop of the Camelot Hotel, where the seminar was held--a noisy place, Mr. Clinton pointed out; they could have coffee in her room.

They had not been there more than five minutes, Mrs. Broaddrick says, when he moved close as they stood looking out at the Arkansas River. He pointed out an old jailhouse and told her that when he became governor, he was going to renovate that place. (The building was later torn down, but in the course of their searches, NBC's investigators found proof that, as Mrs. Broaddrick said, there had been such a jail at the time.) But the conversation did not linger long on the candidate's plans for social reform. For, Mrs. Broaddrick relates, he then put his arms around her, startling her.

"He told me, 'We're both married people,' " she recalls. She recalls, too, that in her effort to make him see she had no interest of this kind in him, she told him yes, they were both married but she was deeply involved with another man--which was true. She was talking about the man she would marry after her divorce, David Broaddrick, now her husband of 18 years.

The argument failed to persuade Mr. Clinton, who, she says, got her onto the bed, held her down forcibly and bit her lips. The sexual entry itself was not without some pain, she recalls, because of her stiffness and resistance. When it was over, she says, he looked down at her and said not to worry, he was sterile--he had had mumps when he was a child.

"As though that was the thing on my mind--I wasn't thinking about pregnancy, or about anything," she says. "I felt paralyzed and was starting to cry."

As he got to the door, she remembers, he turned.

"This is the part that always stays in my mind--the way he put on his sunglasses. Then he looked at me and said, 'You better put some ice on that.' And then he left."

Her friend Norma Rogers, a nurse who had accompanied her on the trip, found her on the bed. She was, Ms. Rogers related in an interview, in a state of shock--lips swollen to double their size, mouth discolored from the biting, her pantyhose torn in the crotch. "She just stayed on the bed and kept repeating, 'I can't believe what happened.' " Ms. Rogers applied ice to Juanita's mouth, and they drove back home, stopping along the way for more ice.

For some time to come, Mrs. Broaddrick relates, she chastised herself for agreeing to coffee in a hotel room. "But who, for heaven's sake, would have imagined anything like this? This was the attorney general--and it just never entered my mind."

All the way home, she says, they talked about two questions: How could a man like this be governor of a state? The other, more urgent one was what to tell David, the man she loved, about the condition of her face. She decided to tell him she had been hit in the mouth by a revolving door. His answer: "That didn't happen." A few days later, she told him what had actually occurred, and it had its lasting effect. In the years that followed, they would never go to any meeting concerning nursing homes if they knew the governor would attend. Still, one day, when they ran into Mr. Clinton, he greeted them with his customary affability. This precipitated a scene wherein her husband grabbed Mr. Clinton hard, by the hand, and warned him: "Stay away from my wife and stay away from Brownwood Manor [her nursing home]." The governor, she recalls, tried to pass it off as joshing, but had to wrest himself from Mr. Broaddrick's grip.

But Mr. Clinton didn't forget her, as it turned out. In 1984, her nursing facility was judged the best in the state, which brought a congratulatory official letter from the governor. On the bottom was a handwritten note: "I admire you very much." That contact was not quite as memorable--or personal--as the one that occurred in 1991, when she was called out of a meeting concerning state nursing standards. She had no idea that the person who had summoned her was Gov. Clinton, who waited by a stairway for her. He took her hands, she recalls, and told her that he wanted to apologize, and asked what he could do to make things up to her. She said nothing and walked away. For a time, she and Norma wondered what had brought this on. Not long after, Mr. Clinton announced he was running for president.

Trouble began in 1992, when the story Mrs. Broaddrick had shared with a small circle of friends reached a wide public, thanks to a business associate by the name of Philip Yoakum. A bitter opponent of Mr. Clinton, he urged that she come forward during the presidential campaign, which she declined to do. When the Paula Jones lawsuit came along, the plaintiff's lawyers approached her, but Mrs. Broaddrick was determined to stay clear of involvement. That was how she came to sign the false affidavit.

It was this matter that the White House spokesmen and others point to when dismissing her account. Her lawyer, Republican state Sen. Bill Walters, prepared the affidavit--the model for which he says he got from White House lawyer Bruce Lindsey, who was happy to oblige. Her lawyers, Mrs. Broaddrick relates, didn't actually know the facts--that the sexual advances in question were very far from consensual. Her goal was to keep out of everything.

When Kenneth Starr's investigators came around, explains her 28-year- old son, Kevin, a lawyer, it was a different matter. "I told my mother-- and she understood it--that this was another whole level. She knew it was one thing to lie in a civil trial so she could get away from all this, but another to lie to federal prosecutors and possibly a grand jury."

Fearful of punishment for that earlier perjury, she was prepared to admit to the independent counsel's officers--after receiving immunity--that her prior affidavit had been false. In the event, it became a footnote in the Starr report, and carried no weight as far as obstruction of justice charges were concerned. Both Mrs. Broaddrick and her lawyers emphasize that no one from the White House had harassed her or subjected her to other pressures aimed at keeping the story quiet.

Which does not mean the White House is rushing to facilitate any coverage of this story. Mrs. Broaddrick reports that NBC told her its investigators were waiting for the White House to answer some 40 questions relating to this matter. Asked for a response to Mrs. Broaddrick's charges, a White House spokesman told this writer yesterday that the story was so old that Mr. Clinton's personal lawyer, David Kendall, was the one to answer it. After repeated phone calls, Mr. Kendall's assistant said he was unavailable for comment.

In the meantime Mrs. Broaddrick gets intermittent calls from NBC investigators, still hanging out at the Capital Hotel in Little Rock, waiting. In the meantime, too, spokesmen for NBC News still announce their intention to make certain the story is solid--a heartening testimony to the elevated standards of journalism that have now apparently seized the network. Mrs. Broaddrick laughs, noting that NBC is still seeking answers and working on the program, which the network may one day air--an event for which she is not holding her breath.

-- Andy (2000EOD@prodigy.net), February 19, 1999.

Every point deserves a counter point.

Posted for educational puposes only.

http://www.newsweek.com/nw-srv/printed/us/na/na0308_5.htm

Newsweek, February 22, 1999

The Right Wing Web

In an exclusive book excerpt, NEWSWEEK's Michael Isikoff details how a loose band of Clinton enemies helped Paula Jones-and brought Monica to Starr's attention

In Washington, you never know who you'll meet in a TV green room. In August 1997, as I waited to appear on CNBC to offer my analysis of the latest judicial decision in the Paula Jones case, I ran into someone who knew much more about the Jones litigation than I did. An acid-tongued blonde who writes a legal-affairs column for the right-wing weekly Human Events, Ann Coulter was one of President Clinton's most ardent enemies. She was also an experienced lawyer. As we chatted that night, she kept hinting that she had inside knowledge about Jones's legal strategy. When I remarked on this, she laughed. "There are lots of us busy elves working away in Santa's workshop."

Busy elves? Who were these lawyers? What were they doing? It would take me 18 months to piece togetherand confirmthe important role they played in the Lewinsky affair. As I reported on the story in 1997 and into 1998, I got hints that some conservative lawyers were working behind the scenes. And NEWSWEEK did report the outlines of their activity as early as the first weeks of the scandal. As the months wore on, I used the lawyers to get more information; sometimes they tried to use me to spread the story. Looking back, some sources misled me; others later told me of their involvement on an off-the-record basis and lifted that restriction only at the conclusion of the Senate trial. Although the conspirators were conservative, they were not the "vast" group that Hillary Clinton suspected. Instead, they were a handful of determined enemies of the president who not only helped the Jones camp but also led a willing Linda Tripp to Kenneth Starr.

The story begins in Little Rock with a lawyer named Cliff Jackson. One of Clinton's most bitter foes, Jackson had been unearthing secrets of Clinton's for years. In 1994 the work paid off. He persuaded journalists Bill Rempel of the Los Angeles Times and David Brock of The American Spectator to investigate allegations that Clinton, while governor, had used state troopers to procure women. When Paula Jones recognized herself as one of the women in Brock's piece, she wanted to file suit against the presidentto regain her good name, she said. Jackson was eager to help her find the best attorneys. Gerry Spence wasn't interested. Neither was Anita Hill. The National Organization for Women responded with a form letter and a kit on how to file a lawsuit.

So Jackson turned to an old friend and conservative colleague: Peter W. Smith, a prominent Chicago investment banker who was a major contributor to Newt Gingrich's political committee, GOPAC. No friend of Clinton's, Smith had helped bankroll Jackson's earlier efforts to derail the president. (He'd given Brock a $5,000 stipend to investigate Clinton's sexual escapades and contributed $25,000 to a fund to support the troopers who blew the whistle on Clinton.) When Jackson asked Smith to help Jones, he suggested they call Richard Porter, a former aide to Dan Quayle. Porter was an associate at Kirkland & Ellis, the blue-chip Chicago law firm that's home to Kenneth Starr. Porter couldn't take on the casefor one thing, he wasn't a litigatorbut he didn't want to let Smith down. Falling back on old school ties, he turned to a fellow University of Chicago law alum, Jerome Marcus. A registered Democrat who had worked in Ronald Reagan's State Department, Marcus was a tough litigator with a Philadelphia firm. Like the others, Marcus didn't want to be publicly associated with the Jones casehis firm's founding partner was a prominent Democratic fund-raiserbut he was intrigued. "I can't put my name on stuff, but I'll help," he told Porter. Working from his Philadelphia home, Marcus drafted the first civil complaint ever filed against a sitting president. But Jones needed lawyers who were willing to step up to the microphone. The "elves" found Gil Davis, a genial former federal prosecutor who ran a Virginia law firm. Teaming up with his associate, Joe Cammarata, Davis took on the case with gusto.

They soon hit a snag. No incumbent president had ever been sued for things he'd done before taking office. Was the case constitutional? It was up to the Supreme Court to decide. Readying their argument for the high court, Jones's lawyers were befriended by none other than Ken Starr, then in private practice. The former appellate judge believed the case had merit and counseled them to move forward. Starr and Davis spoke a half-dozen times for a total of four-and-a-half hours in June 1994, discussing ways the Jones attorneys could undercut the president's claims of immunity.

Starr's help ended there. In August 1994 he was named independent counsel and cut off contact with Davis. By then, however, the elves had enlisted the help of another conservative lawyera brilliant young litigator named George Conway. A graduate of Harvard and Yale, Conway, then in his mid-30s, was already pulling down a million dollars a year at one of New York's prestigious firms. A consummate gossip with an impish laugh, Conway loved to swap stories about Clinton's foibles. When Conway attacked Clinton's immunity argument in a Los Angeles Times op-ed piece, Cammarata and Davis knew they'd found a kindred spirit. He agreed to do his part, but only if he, too, remained behind the scenes. Why the secrecy? One of his law firm's heaviest hitters was Bernard Nussbaum, Clinton's first White House counsel. Among Conway's and Marcus's tasks: setting up a grueling "moot court" session to prepare Davis for the Supreme Court argument. Reaching out to Conway's brothers in the Federalist Society, a band of conservative lawyers, they enlisted the help of Robert Bork and Theodore Olsen, a former Reagan Justice Department official and Ken Starr's close friend. The session was designed to re-create the often intimidating atmosphere of a Supreme Court argument. At the appointed hour, however, Davis was nowhere to be found. When he finally showed up, his briefcase bulging, he suggested he'd rather skip the grilling and just discuss the case. Conway felt ill. He wondered how much Davis had prepared for the case. Standing before the justices a week later, Davis stumbled. At times, he tripped over the very points Olsen had warned him about. But Davis got by: months later, the high court ruled 9-0 that the case against Clinton could proceed.

Worried about a possible trial, the president's lawyers made an offer in August 1997: $700,000 to make the whole thing go away. Paula and her husband, Steve, wouldn't have any of it. From the beginning she said she wanted an apology and she wasn't going to budge now. Her lawyers stuck with her. But that all changed when Judge Susan Webber Wright tossed out part of the case, making it less likely Clinton's insurance companies would ever have to pay up. Davis and Cammarata begged her to settle. Still Paula held out. The lawyers threw up their hands. If Jones was going to continue to fight, she'd have to do it with another set of lawyers.

It didn't take long to find a new team. In September 1997, John Whitehead spotted a Washington Post article reporting Davis and Cammarata had quit the case. Whitehead led the Rutherford Institute, which helps Christian conservatives mount legal cases. He thought the Jones lawsuit would bring some welcome publicity. He knew just the firm to handle the case. Rader, Campbell, Fisher Pyke reflected the Christian principles Rutherford touted. Like Whitehead, the Dallas lawyers hoped the Jones case would bring their firm into the big time.

They quickly were overwhelmed. Clinton's lawyers blitzed the court with motions demanding limits on the evidence of Clinton's involvement with other women that could be introduced at trial. In late October, Wright ordered Don Campbell and his partners to respond within 24 hours. The Dallas lawyers desperately needed help. They turned to the elves. "Don't worry," Conway promised. "We've been waiting three years to write this motion." Conway and Marcus pulled an all-nighter. Frantically e-mailing between New York and Philadelphia, they pieced together a 31-page legal brief that ripped apart the president's arguments point by point. Judge Wright, they argued forcefully, had to let them dig up the president's sexual past. The Dallas lawyers were thrilled by the brief and filed it under their own names that morning. Wright later allowed the Jones lawyers to proceed.

An even bigger break would soon come. In New York, literary agent Lucianne Goldberg was looking to air her friend Linda Tripp's claims that Clinton was having an affair with a young White House intern, Monica Lewinsky. I had known of Tripp's allegations for months, but I didn't have sufficient reporting to suggest NEWSWEEK should print a story. Impatient with me, Goldberg and the elves resolved to take their claims directly to the Jones camp. She called on one of her wide circle of conservative friends, the right-wing book publisher Al Regnery. Could he put her in touch with Jones's lawyers? Regnery gave her the phone number of Peter Smith, the secretive Chicago investment banker Cliff Jackson had called three years earlier. On Nov. 18, 1997, Smith listened to what Goldberg had to say, then called her back with a young man on the line: Richard Porter, the ex-aide to Vice President Quayle. Porter assured the literary agent that he would take care of it. Goldberg noted the call in a spiral notebook in which she kept track of her conversations with Tripp, alongside recipes for short ribs. Next to that day's entry, she wrote cryptically, "note: Ken Starr's partner re: Linda. She will be subpoenaed." Were Goldberg and Tripp already thinking of taking the story to Starr? Goldberg would later insist that the reference to Starr was merely a way to identify Porter's firm. That afternoon Conway was sitting in his New York office when an e-mail from Porter popped up on his computer screen. "There's a woman named Lewisky [sic]. She indulges a certain Lothario in the Casa Blanca for oral sex in the pantry." Porter's message went on to mention a "Betty Curry [sic]" as being the woman's conduit, the existence of "romantic tapes" and a "certain reporter at NEWSWEEK" who knows all about it. Conway immediately called Porter. He had to be kidding. Porter assured him this was no joke. Conway faxed the e-mail to Jones's lawyer Don Campbell.

As a result of the Goldberg to Regnery to Smith to Porter to Conway to Campbell phone chain, Tripp found herself talking directly to the Jones lawyers. On Nov. 21, 1997, David Pyke called her at home. Tripp told him that if she was subpoenaed and asked the right questions, "I will not lie," but "I need to look hostile." Perhaps, he suggested, a subpoena could just "drop on your doorstep out of the blue." The legal machinery was now in motion to make Trippand Lewinskywitnesses in the case of Jones v. Clinton.

A month later, Tripp and Lewinsky got their subpoenas. Goldberg's notebook records a phone call from Tripp on Dec. 23, 1997. "Linda told 'pretty girl' she would not lie" under oath. Goldberg also noted that she discussed the latest developments with Porter and Marcus. She told them about the Tripp tapes and that Monica had told Linda that "Vernon Jordan told her to lie." Goldberg's claim may have been an exaggeration. Still, the allegation that Jordan was coaching Monica and that Lewinsky was pressuring Tripp to lie stunned Porter and Marcus. "Holy s---," Marcus recalled thinking. This was possibly subornation of perjury. Maybe obstruction of justice. And it was on tape. Protecting the tapes took on new urgency. There was talk of getting the tapes into the hands of a third party, someone who would make sure they weren't destroyed. Perhaps a publisher who could put them under the cloak of the First Amendment.

By October 1997, I had only a sketchy picture of the behind-the-scenes maneuvering by the lawyers, but I was told about the tapes by Goldberg and others. They offered to play them for me, but I begged off. I did not want to be a part of whatever they were up to. I wasn't happy when I heard about the suggestion that they could use the tapes as the basis for a tell-all book. Stunned at this idea, I called Goldberg and told her that such a move was insane. Maybe I crossed the line by saying so, but it seemed to me that if Tripp went for a book deal she would undermine her own credibility. And though I didn't admit it, I was thinking something else as well: You're going to muck up my story too. The book idea never went anywhere, but Marcus spent the Christmas holiday wrestling over what to do with the tapes: "All I kept thinking was ... who do you call?"

It is not clear who first came up with the answer: take the tapes to Starr. It might have been Marcus or Goldberg, who had continued to chat with the elves over the holidays. Tripp herself, who was frequently on the phone with Goldberg, said last week in an interview, "It never occurred to me to go to Ken Starr." To all of them, though, it made perfect sense that the tapes should go to the man who had spent three-and-a-half years trying to uncover Clinton's secrets. But would Starr want them? Marcus knew just how to find out. On Jan. 8, 1998, in Philadelphia, he met with an old pal, another University of Chicago alum, Paul Rosenzweig, who worked for Starr investigating Travelgate. Before dinner at Deux Cheminees, Marcus told Rosenzweig of the Tripp tapes. "I haven't listened to this stuff," Marcus remembers saying. "I don't know if it's real or not. But do you think this is something your office would be interested in?" Rosenzweig was always careful when discussing his work. "I don't know," he said, "I'll find out." Later, Conway and Porter joined the group at the tony French restaurant. The elves avoided any further direct mention of Lewinsky, but throughout the evening one or the other would wonder aloud, "Aren't these people [Clinton and his crowd] unbelievable?''

The next day, Rosenzweig told Jackie Bennett, Starr's righthand man, of his dinner. A hard-nosed prosecutor, Bennett warned that they were not going to chase rumors and hearsay. If this woman had some information, she had to give it to them directly. "It needs to come in the front door," Bennett told Rosenzweig. Briefed three days later, Starr agreed. Rosenzweig relayed Starr's decision back to Marcus, who sent word to Linda. By 9 p.m. she was on the phone spilling to Bennett.

To this day, it is unclear whether Starr and his deputies understood how closely Marcus was tied to the Jones camp. Four days later, when the independent counsel's office asked for permission to expand its investigation to include the Lewinsky affair, Bennett voluntarily declared the office's independence. "No contacts w Paula Jones attorneys by C office," read one deputy's notes of the meeting. Bennett rec

-- Itsoveralready! (balanced@reporting.com), February 19, 1999.

wHY DO YOU roLl in the mud with PIGS??? Is it not AgREED THAT ClInTON IS A LyING FOOL???? NO???? YES??? Only HE is NOT AFOOL,IS THaT NOT TRUe????STill, HE IS A LYEr is THIS NOT SO???? WHY so much WORRyment over THis DOG???? DO you BElieVE THAt he WILL RETAin OFFICE OVER THE ObJEcTIONS OF A rebUblican CONgress???? Direter DOESNOT Think SUCH FOOLISHNESS WILL ComE TO PASS!!!!

-- Dieter (questions@toask.com), February 19, 1999.

Thanks, It's Over Already, There are two sides, and Salon Magazine had one of the best articles about the R. Mellon Sciaff connection to ruin Clinton, and Scaiff's connection to Starr. What they didn't count on though, was Clinton could do a fine job of that all by himself. For a smart man, he behaves like an incredibly stupid oaf. But I don't see that many who criticize him are any better. I've never used a president for a role model yet. I think people get their role models at home from mom, dad and extended family.

But what I mainly object to is that we have become so moralistic and judgemental about everyone's personal life. It's nobody's business! Can you imagine Eisenhower having to explain his dallying with Kay Summersby during WWII, or Kennedy being grilled about his various frolics, and FDR's affair with Lucy Mercer, which was nobody's business but the parties involved. It's sexual McCarthyism, and I hate it. But what I hate even more is people continuing to blather about it, when it's over. I'm blathering about it now, but I damn well didn't bring it up, and I wouldn't have.

I see the press has now gone back to talking up the Jon Benet murder, if something tragic or sexual doesn't happen soon, they'll have to go back and dig up more on Diana and maybe even as far back as poor old Marv. Enough already!!

-- gilda jessie (jess@listbot.com), February 19, 1999.

GILDA!!! WHY HAVE You have FOOLISHLY not inclUded Oj????? is he NOT on THE 18tH GrEEN AS WE SPEAK???? I HATE HIM!!!!

-- Dieter (questions@toask.com), February 19, 1999.

Oh my Gawd, I forgot the most infamous, and most idiotic trial in the history of the world. SHUT my mOUF!! Talk about bored. I got as tired of that as I have Clinton/Monica, Jon Benet, Diana, and the Nannny trial all rolled into one.

-- gilda jessie (jess@listbot.com), February 19, 1999.

In light of these postings Y2K is definitely a blessing in disguise.

A nation that can produce so many fanatical puritans needs a cleansing to the core.

Do all puritanical neo-fascists really believe female with stories from the distant past, conveniently accusing a man after he has become President with calumnies that can yield substantial black mail settlements given the availability of right wing shysters. Does not the world notice how transparent these Innocent damsels in distress are when they color their stories painting themselves as poor little victims, in need of rescue from brave shining knights KKKenneth Starr? How easy to accuse a man after many years when he cannot come out and counter their stories because it is below the dignity of his office to show that when he was a young man women they most likely provoked him and then participated eagerly in whatever happened if anything in fact happened at all.

Who are these saints kidding? After all Bob Dole is now advertising Viagra, (Clinton envy?) and is telling America how painful it can be to suffer erectile dysfunction. Is the hatred of Clinton a hysterical Christian right trying to re-establish the Holy Inquisition? Shall we rake Clinton over the coals. Shall we put him into the iron maiden. Have him drawn and quartered to satisfy your thirst for revenge since he showed himself smarter than a legion of shysters. Why you uncivilized morons, who massacred 600 indian nations to convert them to Christianity. You who stole the Kingdom of Hawaii and made those who welcomed you in the spirit of Aloha prisoners and paupers in their own land in exchange for Bible sermons. You speak of morals. You immoral buffoons! You hypocrites will soon see a backlash to end all backlashes if Y2K still allows an election to happen in 2000.

Long live Clinton and Gore!!!!

-- David Carrigan (letters@uneco.org), February 20, 1999.

Thanks David, I needed that as an antidote to all the puritanical poop I read earlier.

As the Aussie said in the Sydney Herald, "Thank God they got the Puritans and we got the Convicts."

If all these people who are so incensed at Clinton's various sins would get just one-fourth as worked up over the corporate pollution of the environment, our food supply and water, this earth would be a better place. But no, they'd rather yammer and hammer about his sexual escapades, and blather about him being a "poor moral role model," than worry about the importance of the ecology that sustains us all.

When the water has turned to shit and the earth into a toxic waste dump, no one will give a damn about Clinton's stupidity with some consenting, silly, young intern.

Do I give a damn about Nixon breaking into the Democratic HQ? NO! But I do give a damn about him signing the Endangered Species Act, which has done more good than all that long, drawn out trial about his snooping stupidity.

-- gilda jessie (jess@listbot.com), February 20, 1999.

COME ON!! There are enough places for a deep discussion of the Clinton Follies without screwing up a very good forum. If I wanted to go trolling, I'd be out fishing now. Dieter--Grow up, you're not funny. Lobo

-- Lobo (hiding@woods.com), February 21, 1999.

AND I CARE abOut WHAT YoU THINK BecAusE...........

-- Dieter (questions@toask.com), February 21, 1999.

PleaSE EXCUSE DieTER, DIEter is moSt very sorry!!!!Forgive Dieter Bitte????? WHaT WAS ThE MEANT To be said by Dieter was I CAre what YoU say because OF why, JACKASS???? BUNGPLUG????

-- Dieter (questions@toask.com), February 21, 1999.